Zeno RHU will aim to survive lunar night

August 20, 2026, 12:00PMNuclear News
Rendering of Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander with a closeup of Zeno Power’s Survive-the-Night package hosted on the top deck. (Image: Zeno Power/Firefly Aerospace)

As established by a commercial payload agreement, a radioisotope heating unit (RHU) developed by Zeno Power will be onboard one of Firefly Aerospace’s existing Blue Ghost missions to the near side of the moon as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, the companies announced yesterday.

Zeno, which has already been working on an americium-241–fueled radioisotope power system for Harmonia RPS, will provide a lightweight, compact 5-Wt Am-241 RHU that includes communications, electrical power, command and data handling, and thermal management subsystems.